Speed of Life
by Dark Manifest
Summary: The faster you go, the faster you burn out. But he's not slowing down for anything. Cougar centric.


**The Speed of Life**

**All disclaimers apply.**

Some things came more naturally than others. People were born to paint, born to sing, born to fight. Cougar - Cougar was born to race.

Not against anyone or anything in particular, really. He didn't have a need to compete. Some things he couldn't beat. The sky, for example. Kind of hard to beat something that went on forever. Oh, and sensation. He couldn't outrun that, either. Which was fair enough. But there were some things he could beat, so he did. Because he could. Because he wanted to.

Best reason to do anything at all.

And all that business about sound barriers and the speed of light, it didn't really impress him. He could beat sound, that was easy. He couldn't beat light, and it hurt to try, but then, it wasn't like there was anyone else who could try, who could really call it an _effort _to begin with, not the way he could. It wasn't all that spectacular, so he found it kind of insulting when people gaped at him as if what he'd done was so amazing. When your own limitations were so far beyond anyone else's, the only person you needed to amaze was yourself. Let them gape. He was only just getting started.

The abstacts were what interested him the most. Could he move faster than the speed of fate? Faster than the speed of pain? Maybe even outrace the speed of thought? Those things all depended on the oppurtunity - no one situation was like another. Sound was sound and light was light, but the human heart was a fickle thing and always presented a challenge.

He found out from a young age that he could outrun sorrow. It was simply a matter of deciding to leave it behind. And leave it he did, along with barriers and doubts and insecurities, familiar things like friends and loved ones who just couldn't keep up. Let everyone else wallow. There were too many places to go, people to see.

He outran his dying mother, outran his brother-in-arms, outran poverty, outran despair. Ran right into the arms of Holy, and from there he had a world of new races to consider. New things to prove he was faster than.

Some things were harder than others to get away from. Like falability - that one could sure catch up to you in a hurry. What your body could and couldn't take. Cougar pushed and stretched and forced the limits, but they had a tendency to snap back without warning. And suddenly, he left behind his bones and blood and skin. All that remained was power, and desire. Underneath it all, speed.

When he didn't have a body anymore, he got the biggest lesson of all: Nothing was fast, not even him. Nothing went further than anything else. All chose a speed and some had better speeds than others. But ultimately, it all went back to the beginning. The key to a race was that there was a finish line. Without one of those, why bother running at all? Talk about going around in circles.

Cougar liked abstracts because they challenged him, in a world where precious little could challenge him. Running headfirst into his own futility was intriguing, as revelations went. Intrigued he remained until they drew him back from the Void and he realized: _If it doesn't mean anything, I might as well never stop._

So race he did, faster than ever before, until the new white streak in his hair was a blur along with the rest of him. It didn't have to have purpose. The best things in the world didn't seem to make sense at all. Let it be enough to want to. Let it be enough to _yearn_.

He did things faster than others - that was his gift. Or curse, the point was moot. He moved faster, learned faster, felt faster - he loved so fast that he didn't even know it was happening until it was no longer just an idea. The abstract offered more entertainment. But the real thing felt twice as good - twice as bad.

Cougar went far too fast for anyone he loved to find the time to love him back.

That didn't mean he'd ever stop and wait for them to catch up, though, because who knew if _she_ ever would? No time for that, no time to wait, no time to worry, no time to hurt. It was easier to love when you didn't stop to think about it. He concluded that about most things.

And in the end, it was fine. He was doing what he enjoyed, he was being the fastest. Even when there was someone faster, he was still the best, since it wasn't just about the ever-infinite Do. It was also about Why, and How. Just because he had speed without purpose, didn't mean he had to live that way.

Or die that way.

In the natural course of things, once he was the fastest, there was only one more thing to outrun.

With no finish line in sight, Cougar sat back, pulled down his shades, basked in the glow of his victory.

And, taking his time, he finally succeeded in beating life.


End file.
